BEYOND
POOR RESULTS

Topics: Despair; Discouragement; Endurance; Evangelism; Fruitfulness; Ministry; Missions; Perseverance

References: 1 Chronicles 28:20; Psalm 31:9–24; 1 Corinthians 15:58; Galatians 6:9–10

“It seemed to me I should never have any success among the Indians. My soul was weary of my life; I longed for death, beyond measure.”

That is what David Brainerd wrote in the early 1700s about his early weeks as a missionary to Native Americans. Things didn’t improve much for the first two years. Brainerd felt his prospects of winning converts were “as dark as midnight.”

Three years into the work, though, he finally witnessed a revival among the Indians of Crossweesung in New England, and eighteen months later, the number of converts numbered 150—which was profoundly significant in his day. Brainerd died after only five years on the mission field, at age twenty-nine.

After Brainerd’s death, Jonathan Edwards—whom some consider America’s greatest theologian—published Brainerd’s journals. These were read widely in America and Europe. William Carey, the man who ignited the modern Protestant missionary movement, which has resulted in millions of conversions worldwide, said Brainerd’s journals were a key source of his inspiration to take up the missionary life.

Who, then, can judge whether our work is worthwhile? Certainly we cannot when we are in the midst of discouragement.

—Ruth Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya (Zondervan, 1983)